This research seeks to understand how and why households enter and exit material hardship, the extent to which federal program participation acts as a buffer, and how material hardship, not poverty, affects children and adults over the long-term. Specifically, the research will: (1) Identify how individual-level characteristics (e.g., family type, veteran status) and decisions impact the experience of material hardship. (2) Document how structural determinants at the state level (e.g., use of technology in application procedures) influence individual well-being. (3) Evaluate the consequences of material hardship over the life course (e.g., fertility, college attendance). Econometric techniques will be applied to data from the 2008 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Models of material hardship will be developed based on four domains of need: home, medical, bill-paying, and food hardship. Analyses will include descriptive analyses and individual fixed effects models.